eafkuor (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

absolutely ridiculous

Dallouez (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

If you run into someone who was born deaf how do you tell him what music is. If they are born blind how do you tell him whjat you see and et al. The gift of smell is one of our most sensitive yet we are sledom aware of it. If you can't measure something that doesn't exist YET how do we know if it works or not. How come I have a resting heart beat of 24 BPM. How come I can sit on the bottom of a pool for 5 min or sit outside naked in 60 below zero weather? Try it (Aikido)you'll like it.

manicap1 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

explaining most of the things with scientific "spectacles" i sfine. some things are not to be explained. otherwise magic is lost.

Aikimans (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Then perhaps somebody should make a scientific study of ki and find out what it actually is. Sure, there are people out there making unsubstantiated claims on this and that but then for an entire culture to embrace the concept of ki, there must be something in it.

sweetsweatyfeet (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Sorry, my comment got cut off. To be fair to your point, yes I think scientific method should be open to different avenues of exploration. And following that... claims for new discoveries in energy (like ki) should be looked into. But we also need some method to validation the claim because as we all know the world is full of crazy and ridiculous claims. Subjecting claims which appear to violate physical laws to observable, repeatable testing is not an unreasonable approach.

sweetsweatyfeet (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Science is not meant to be the be all, end all. It is simply a reliable method for understanding the physical universe. What we ultimately conclude is subject to human error and frailty but it's the methodology we use to discover truths that

Aikimans (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

So is the reality of the human spirit living after death, thats a violation of mathematically proven science also. But science cannot prove its not real. There are somethings in nature that require us to take a leap of faith, for many people this is very hard to do. Im not saying Ki exists because I dont know anything about it, but I do know that science is not the be all and end all of our understanding of the universe.

sweetsweatyfeet (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

An arm is a lever with hinges All levers bend, that is their nature. It is ONLY the contraction of tendons and muscles that control arm movement. To suggest that some (undefined, non-mechanicall) force is at work to keep an arm from bending is a violation of mathematically proven Newtonian mechanics.

Aikimans (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

And this is the ultimate achievement in Aikido, to perform Aikido without using excess muscular strength which is why KI is emphasised so the practitioner has some concept to use in order to achieve effortless power. Most martial arts except for the internal ones rely on speed and strength for their techniques because its all about winning. Aikido encourages people to learn and discover the power of effortlessness which takes many many years to uncover.

Aikimans (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

In terms of the unbendable arm, I dont think it has anything to do with strength and holding anybodies weight. Its about using weight underside, relaxation and extending energy outwards to create an arm that wont bend rather than using muscles to try and do the same thing. I think sweetsweaty is missing the point.